Summary: This book takes place many years into the future in New Beijing. 5 world wars have passed, and a deadly plague ravages the earth. (And a colony of beings called Lunars live on the moon.) Our main character, Cinder, is a cyborg mechanic, and an important discovery about herself could change the fate of the world.
Star rating: I gave this book 4.5 stars, but that rounded up to 5 stars on goodreads. It was entertaining and the idea was very cool. I highly recommend if you haven't read it. If you have not read it, I think that you should leave now. I do have some spoilers below, but I did cover them up. Still, it's better going into this book without knowing what I thought of it.
Main characters:
- Cinder. She was a pretty cool character. She seemed to react to most of the situations in the book normally, as a normal person would, and her cyborg parts were really cool and fun to read about. It annoyed me how she always turned the prince down whenever he asked her to the ball. It seemed to just lengthen the book, but I also didn't mind that she turned the prince down. It showed that she had more priorities than just going to the dance with him. <SPOILER> And I really loved how her story unraveled. It was predictable that she was Lunar from page 1, but I didn't realize she was princess Selene until I was nearly halfway through. But I love how there was a little clue each chapter. For instance, when she thought she was a shell, but then she couldn't see past Levana's glamour. That showed that she was Lunar, but she wasn't a shell. <SPOILER>
- Prince Kaito. I felt very meh about him. He felt kind of flat but HE'S THE PRINCE, SO THEREFORE HE'S AMAZING! No. Even royalty won't save you from being a boring character. But I didn't really have any problem with him. He's kind of like Jason, from the Heroes of Olympus. He doesn't really do anything, but all the female characters seem to like him, and he has some famous parents.
- Peony. I was kind of surprised that Peony was fairly kind towards Cinder, and that they both cared for each other. Peony is supposed to be one of the evil stepsisters, but she wasn't evil at all.
- Pearl. Now, Pearl is evil. I didn't like her.
- Queen Levana. Don't like her either. Need I explain?
- Iko. Everyone says that they love Iko, but I didn't feel like there was very much of her in this book. I don't feel like I got to see enough of her personality to truly like her.
What this book did well:
- It was a very interesting idea. Futuristic retellings of old stories are always very cool. There was little things in this book, like when <SPOILER> Cinder self-destructed(?) or something and her shoe came off on the stairs <SPOILER> Cinder lost her shoe that related to the original story in a really cool way, and I enjoyed that.
- The plot twist, though predictable, was pretty cool, and it opens up a lot of doors for the sequel.
- I loved how even though this was a fairy tale retelling, new elements were added. For example: the plague. The plague is what really got me into this book. Whenever they were searching for a cure, I was enthralled and I couldn't stop flipping the pages.
- I loved how the relationship between Cinder and Kai was political. (Is that the right word?) Kai wanted to take Cinder to the ball because he didn't want to talk to Queen Levana and he didn't want to marry her. It didn't feel like a stupid, carefree, teenage love story at ALL.
- It was predictable. Though predictable, it was still cool.
- I felt like most of the side characters were either good or evil. Queen Levana: straight up evil. Pearl: evil. Evil stepmother: evil.
Other things I'd like to mention: I'm going to this author's book signing soon! Yay!
That's all I can really say about this book. 4.5 stars, entertaining read, highly recommend.
No comments:
Post a Comment